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Obama: Worst President Ever? Topic

It's not that the idea of healthcare for everyone is a bad idea, despite my suggestion that extending lives might not be the best thing for a healthy population, it's just that the ACA doesn't address the real problem. It's just a typical government solution of throwing tax money at something and hoping for the best. I won't mention the political aspect and the catering to a voting base(oops, I guess I did) but there has to be a better solution. The "it's better than what we have" idea doesn't work for me. The Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776. So politicians have had 237+ years to come up with a solution. Find one that is sustainable without turning it into a money pit.

Posted by MikeT23 on 3/20/2014 10:36:00 AM (view original):It's not that the idea of healthcare for everyone is a bad idea, despite my suggestion that extending lives might not be the best thing for a healthy population, it's just that the ACA doesn't address the real problem. It's just a typical government solution of throwing tax money at something and hoping for the best. I won't mention the political aspect and the catering to a voting base(oops, I guess I did) but there has to be a better solution. The "it's better than what we have" idea doesn't work for me. The Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776. So politicians have had 237+ years to come up with a solution. Find one that is sustainable without turning it into a money pit.

As an aside to your comment "extending lives might not be the best thing for a healthy population" . . .

I recently saw or read something (forget which, or where I read/saw it) that made an interesting point. I'll paraphrase as best as I can.

In the old days, before modern medicine, if somebody had some inherent predisposition to some defect or disease, they would often die at a young age before they had an opportunity to have children of their own. Natural selection would tend to "deselect" that undesirable trait over time. In modern days, with modern medicine, natural "deselection" is not happening to the same extent, as those people with these genetic defects are now living longer, having children of their own, and passing the defects down to future generations. How this plays out in the long run remains to be seen.

That's true but I was looking at it from a resource point of view. Regardless of what we think, there is a finite amount of resources. Should we spend them on an 87 y/o catatonic man or a 6 y/o child? Should we spend them on either if the prognosis is death within a year? It's rough to put that into words but it's a fact.

Think of it in the animal kingdom. The herd of water buffalo may defend the old cow from a pack of lions. But, if the lions are relentless, the water buffalo eventually cut their loss and save the resources they were using to fight another day. They realize that they're just delaying the inevitable. I think most of us would spend our last dime to give our loved one another day. But, once that dime is spent, we're relying on others to provide the resources that we no longer have. The whole "burden on society" thing.

We like to think that the humane thing to do is to keep people alive. Maybe it isn't. For them and for the rest of society.